When I Come Around
by rock steady13
Summary: Arnold thinks Helga's done something he has to hate her for but, 4 yrs later he finally learns he'd made a terrible mistake. now, w/ help from helga & gerald, arnold's back w/ fresh determination to do the impossible... please R&R! chap 6 uP!!
1. Prologue

a/n: hey peoples. this, to be blatantly honest, is my first ever HA! fic and i dont know if its good or bad or depressing or stupid or what but i've been reading a heck of a lot of them lately and so i thought i may as well give it a go myself. TELL IF LIKE. in otherwords, review please!  
  
**disclaimer** Me no own Hey Arnold!...yet.  
  
***summery*** (as if you didn't read it before)  
  
Arnold thinks Helga's destroyed something which was going to play a key role in his life. However, 4 years later, summer after The Gang's graduated from jr. high school, he finally figures out he's made a big mistake, which (like all HA! plots) leads to the adventure of a lifetime for Arnold, Helga, and the rest of The Gang.  
  
a/n (again!): just to chat, the poem/song at the beginning is one my bff has recently written for her band and it just reminded me sorta of helga. welp, sorry to keep you waiting! enjoy! review! read!  
  
chapter one. Prologue  
  
"I don't wanna be the one.  
  
The one who's always left behind.  
  
Will there ever come a day?  
  
When I can turn around and say,  
  
It's alright now.  
  
It's alright now,  
  
Yeah, yeah.  
  
It's all right now.  
  
I don't wanna be the one.  
  
The one who's left undone.  
  
Loosing more and more,  
  
And dream of everything,  
  
Falling down,  
  
I'll go see through in the sun,  
  
Sayin', it's alright now.  
  
It's alright now,  
  
Yeah, yeah...  
  
It's all right now.  
  
Waiting, watching,  
  
Restoration for those who stay,  
  
Waving to those who walk away.  
  
I don't wanna be the one.  
  
If I could only see it,  
  
If I could only feel it,  
  
Will there ever come a day?  
  
It's alright now.  
  
It's alright now,  
  
Yeah, yeah...  
  
It's all right now.  
  
*~*  
  
"What's wrong with her?"  
  
"What did you do?!"  
  
"What's wrong with her?! What's wrong with him you mean!"  
  
Millions of voice rushed and swirled together behind the girl as she hurled herself down the street, away from the Sunset Arms, away from the staring bystanders. Away from him.  
  
Tears flooded from her eyes, stinging them red and flowing down her cheeks in torrents. Only one part of her mind was still devoted to reason, one little voice which could really barely be heard behind the tears and the yells and the pain. Funny. That voice used to rule her mind.  
  
Ha ha. Funny.  
  
Ducking into the old Spumoni theatre, flying past the sign which proclaimed it "a historical landmark", she finally stopped and collapsed into sobbing to the floor. Why was everything so ugly suddenly? Everybody hated her...they hated her before, they'd always hate her...  
  
And now Arnold hated her.  
  
Arnold.  
  
The name brought a whole new batch of tears streaming down her face. Arnold. Arnold hated her. Arnold really hated her. Emphasizes on hate. He'd said so! He'd said so himself that he hated her; nothing could stop the words from flashing back again and again in her mind.  
  
"Helga, I never thought I'd ever say this about anyone in my life...but Helga Pataki, I HATE YOU."  
  
She didn't know. She hadn't known.  
  
But how could that matter? It was still her fault, her fault he hated her. Her nasty, mocking Helga-ish-ness had gone too far...had come back and taken the strong vengeance on her she knew was coming in the back of her mind.  
  
Her head hurt.  
  
"I HATE YOU."  
  
He hated her.  
  
Just thinking about the words made her sob even more. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words'll never hurt me," she'd chanted as a toddler. Well, words did hurt. Too much.  
  
Suddenly everything snapped back into focus; everything replayed itself for her, every smell, every color, every detail fresh as if it was still happening. The paper, not mysterious, not seemingly important in any way, wrinkled and lined and smelling of however-it-was that paper always seemed to smell...The ripping, hearing the paper split in two, in four, in six, in eight pieces...The laughing, the thinking she'd successfully destroyed his science homework or love note to Lila or whatever it had been...Then the yelling, the running, the crying, the flushed face of her beloved as he screamed at her about the apparent importance of the paper, about how she'd successfully ruined his life. Then the hating. Then the crying again. Then the running, running away this time, not following. Then the voices, the bewildered bystanders behind them.  
  
And then she was here.  
  
Helga had stopped crying. Helga didn't cry, after all, or that's what she told herself long enough to believe it. She'd made someone really hate her. Really, truly hate her.  
  
Helga Pataki walked out of the theatre and began the long track towards "home", ignoring the stares of the people along the way.  
  
*~*  
  
a/n: i know i know extremely short but it's the prologue and what i consider test run of the story. and sorry sorry sorry that it was SO depressing! i guarantee the whole story isn't like that. some chaps'll be quite humorous! some will be sad! some will be angst and some will be romantic and some will be...ahem; well; anyway. if you review and say you like, i'll continue! it's that simple!! oh, and flames will be used for french toast.  
  
YOU REVIEW. ME WRITE. unga bunga.  
  
till later, keep a mild groove on;  
  
catwoman (formerly known as rock-steady13) 


	2. Pretending to be Impressed

chapter two (or is it one? anywho...): Pretending to be impressed  
  
Helga wasn't impressed.  
  
Then again, she rarely was. Not even the prospect of five minutes till total freedom from the hellishness of 8th grade (screw 8th grade; junior high school itself) managed to get Helga G. Pataki hyper. Or happy. Or impressed. Or anything. She just sat at her cold, hard desk (oak wood in a sad attempt to make school more homey; as if *that* would make *her* learn more) and sketched away as her classmates literally ran around psycho. Any attempts made to teach by dear old Mrs. Tauland (whom Helga was convinced had something permanently jammed up her ass), were soon abandoned in the face of a bottle of vodka.  
  
Outwardly, Helga had changed little from "the Simmons Years". She hadn't blossomed. She was the tallest person in the class (save You-Know-Who...and even on he she was only about half a head shorter). She was also skinny; so skinny in fact that the average joe would swear she had anorexia, but she was just born that way and devoted to her art. She still had one eyebrow (she'd rather die than pluck it; beauty, in her book, was not worth pain) and still, as far as she was concerned, no boobs. Her hair, once sticking like poles out of her head, had been forced down into two low blonde tails by a backwards baseball cap she wore to replace her bow. Her bow, her locket, her book of poems had all been burned long ago...She didn't need them anymore. The entire outfit closet of Helga consisted of black leather pants, black over shirts and hot pink tank tops, which she wore without fail despite the dress code against anything showing skin. Not even the administration (whoever the heck they were) wished to deal with the creepy nameless girl in 8th grade who didn't talk except to answer teacher's questions and chat with the pretty Oriental.  
  
Phoebe was in a constant state of worry of her nameless best friend. She herself had bloomed beautifully, mentally and physically. She was still the smartest (book-smartest, anyway) kid in the class, and was considered by many to be generous enough, if not rather quiet. And as far as looks went...well, that was something no one in the class had expected. She was average height for a girl, long black hair flowing to a slim waistline, curves in all the right places. Touche, she still wore glasses (her parents having strictly forbid contacts till "she was older"); but they were thin glasses, with lilac, rectangular frames and everyone agreed really that they made her look both smart and chic, a look longed for by a majority of the 8D female populace (Rhonda Wellington-Lloyd leading with a vengeance). It was impossible not to compare her ugly-duckling-with-no-apparent-swan- coming friend to she, the classy, smart babe of the ruling 8th grade. And that fact honestly was the one thing that really managed to piss Phoebe Hyerdahl off.  
  
"Hi Helga," greeted Phoebe, finally cutting through the chaos and finding her best friend.  
  
Helga jumped slightly, and glanced up to see who it was before looking back quickly down at her drawing.  
  
"Oh, hey Pheebs."  
  
"Why aren't you joining in the festivities?" asked the Always-There friend, anxiety cutting through her normally cheery tone like a knife. "After all, we may not be seeing each other againâ€""  
  
"No offense Pheebs, but come off it." Helga began to draw even more vigorously as she went on. "The only people we aren't gonna be seeing again are all the people we don't really care about. Why should I care if Rhonda's going to some preppy school for rich kids or Curly's going to that...special school in southern Alabama? The point is, you're going to PS 218 and I'm going to PS 218 and so are all your "people", whoever they are. I couldn't really care less."  
  
"But Rex isn't going to PS 218."  
  
Helga carefully set down her pen, gave Phoebe "the look" and said in a blank sort of voice: "Funny. Considering he's your boyfriend, one would think that statement should've sounded sad. Hmmm...strange......"  
  
Phoebe opened her mouth to argue, thought about it for a couple of seconds, then closed it again with a grin on her face.  
  
"Don't even pretend to deny that you're not overjoyed to hear our dear friend Geraldo will be joining us there as well."  
  
"Then you don't pretend you're not overjoyed to hear our dear friend Arnold will too," shot back Phoebe, face flushing red ferociously. She immediately knew that had been the wrong thing to say.  
  
Helga's smile snapped off like a flashlight and she glared at her friend. Phoebe had opened her mouth to apologize, when suddenly Helga said, quietly, dangerously, "Phoebe. I don't loâ€"like him anymore. That was four years ago, some stupid fourth grade crush. Besides, there's no point feeling anything for someone who'll never feel anything for you but utter loathing." She blushed at Phoebe's face when the phrase "utter loathing" popped up. "Sorry, writer side butting in."  
  
Phoebe stared down at Helga for a few long seconds before scooching in next to her on the plastic blue chair for one.  
  
"Look Helga," began Phoebe in a serious tone which seemed to fit in her voice rather strangely. "After the incident...I didn't know what happened. No one did. I don't even think *you* did, nor know now. And, honestly Helga, I don't care how important the whatever-it-was on that paper wasâ€"it still doesn't give anyone, not even Arnold, the right to hate someone for four whole years about something that wasn't anybody's fault!"  
  
"He said it had something to do with his parents, Phoebe!" Helga blurted out, not able to hold it in anymore. "I mean...I don't care if it was an accident, I still did it!! And I don't forgive myself, so why should he?! I mean, you say that it doesn't give him the right. 'The right'?!? What the heck is 'The Right'?!?! When does this 'Right' come into play in matters of the heart?! It doesn't!! That's right, IT DOESN'T." (note: by this time the entire eighth grade's conversations had dwindled away into silence as every child turned his or her attention to the raging Helga) "And ya know what, Pheebs?! I DON'T CARE!!! That's right: Let him ignore me for the next four years! Let "the right" screw me over! I don't care, Pheebs: I DON'T CARE."  
  
Finally, it clicked in Helga's mind that the entire eighth grade had fallen into silence and was staring, blankly, directly at her normally silent, angry face. Her eyes widened in pure horror. Taking a long, slow, shaky breath, Helga stood up, trying to at the same time think fast of something clever to say and not burst into tears. Then, as if on some miraculous cue from Godâ€"  
  
RINGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Immediately the awkward display of passion from the nameless one was whipped from the class's minds as they ran, screaming with joy, past her and Phoebe. As the last piece of old homework drifted wearily down to the floor, only three people were left in the room.  
  
Phoebe stared at Helga; Helga stared at the wall.  
  
Slowly, in that unthreatening delicate way Phoebe Hyerdahl was famous for doing everything in, the small Japanese-who-wasn't-really-technically- Japanese gathered her books and stood to meet Helga (who was still in shock). She opened her mouth to say something, when suddenly the third party in the room began to walk, steadily, subtly as possible towards the door. Helga had for years still pondered that walk which wasn't like Phoebe's (quick, light, usually shuffling slightly to keep up with someone), or Gerald's (confident, going his own pace, usually easily altering it to fit whomever he was walking with), or her own. This was a walk that was calm and careful and slow in pace, but still always looked slightly ready to run. A walk whose solitary goal in life seemed to look entirely unthreatening and maddeningly normal.  
  
Helga spent a lot of her time looking at feet.  
  
As both she and Phoebe tensely watched the former friend, the hater, the well-wisher, the one, walk that steady walk past, he himself pointingly looked ahead. Just when he was straight across from Helga, he stopped and looked at her.  
  
To Phoebe this was an absolutely ordinary look, almost a glance; but to Helga, this was a test. This was a test to prove to him just how much she truly didn't care. This was a test to put to the test just how good she was at Pretending. And for Helga G. Pataki, Pretending did begin with a capital letter.  
  
A few seconds later, he broke the gaze and walked on as if nothing had happened.  
  
"What was that all about?" whispered Phoebe.  
  
Helga remained silent until Phoebe was nearly 100% sure she wasn't going to respond when she said, gruffly, slipping back into the Pretending she'd lost that day in class, "He says he doesn't care either."  
  
Arnold Pretended a lot too. But Helga wasn't impressed.  
  
*~*  
  
a/n: WHOOOOO!!!!! PEOPLE REVIEWED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as you can see, i've decided to be evil and drag the secret out just one...more.....chapter......... i'm wicked. :) BUT, if it helps, i did manage to squeeze in some major clues into this chapter (if you haven't worked out it's about his parents by now, you really need some help) i have chap 3 all planned out so it probably wont take as long as this one to put up. this chap was sort of to set up the plot some more and set up all the characters 4 yrs later (oh, by the way, guess what grade i just graduated from) i really want this story to be sorta different from the other romances out there but, hey!, that's what i always want in my stories :) oh! and of course this story'll end up A/H. i would never write a story for HA! that would possibly end up otherwise. oh, and have you ever noticed how HA, while it stands for Hey Arnold!, *could* also stand for Helga/Arnold. oh yeah...how smart am i? (*stops; thinks about it*) don't answer that.  
  
Gir Beeblebroxâ€"yes!!! i love that song!!! i love that album!!! and I LOVE THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY!!!!! and invader zim ;)  
  
chinyemagneâ€"me like caveman talk. me am easily amused. oh, and me like your "Helga the Enigma" fic...as you can probably tell by the mile long review. what? i get excited!  
  
and to everybody else who reviewed, i send you all virtual fruitcakes and say thanks for reviewing my prologue!  
  
as always, keep a mild groove on,  
  
catwoman (the alias formerly known as rock-steady13) 


	3. My Summer Vacation

**disclaimer(s)** i, sadly, dont own Hey Arnold! nor do i own Nike backpacks nor do I own Blo-Pops  
  
chapter 3. My Summer Vacation  
  
Slinging his red and black Nike backpack over one shoulder and sticking a cheery Blo-Pop in his mouth, Gerald Johanssen turned to Helga's hater with an absolutely irritable self-assured smile. That smile had taken over his old one when he became the happy (and only 14-year-old) reverer of Lady Dumb-Luck. This began at age 11 when he found a winning lotto ticket lying on the street and, in a happy-go-lucky mood, gave it to his folks. Two years later, Gerald J. was rich, talented, good-looking, healthy, popular and pretty much content save a few little mosquitoes of issues here and there.  
  
His dumb-luck was precisely 4 hours and 32 minutes away from running out.  
  
Arnold met that beaming, full-toothed smile with a meek attempt at one himself, then slung his gym bag over one shoulder and began the final walk with Geraldo out of PS 119 (a/n: PS 118 only goes to 6th grade so i kinda had to improvise).  
  
Arnold's gym bag had a NBA logo on it.  
  
Arnold didn't play basketball.  
  
Nor was he a particular fan of it.  
  
Arnold, it was famously said, didn't do sports. He was the only popular boy who didn't, and it was also famously said that the way the popular boys had gotten popular in the first play was because they played sports. This was plainly labeled by the gym bags they all used in the place of back packs, with the exception of Gerald. Gerald was the king of the populars...he needed need a gym bag to be basking in cool. Arnold, unlike the other guys, didn't get his popularity from sports. He got his popularity from Gerald. This, with the possible exception of hating Helga, was probably the only anti-noble thing he'd done in his entire life. And he didn't view it as anti-noble in the least.  
  
Then again, that's how he viewed the hating of Helga.  
  
Arnold and Gerald walked in silence to the school doors, letting the rest of the junior high roar past them. If there were two traits the duo shared for certain, they were chock-piled full of dignity and a somewhat misty sense of maturity... well, the best two 14-year-old boys could manage anyway.  
  
Finally, after spending ten minutes in complete and total silence, Arnold started to finally get suspicious. He could easily and willingly shut up for hours on end, but Gerald couldn't go three seconds with out breaking out into conversation unless he was eating or had something on his mind.  
  
"Gerald..." he began warily, slightly disgusted at his own voice. Whereas a majority of the boy's voices had dropped deeply during puberty, his decided to stay practically where it was. He never really did like change.  
  
"Hey Arnold," began Gerald, looking as if he was deeply edgy about whether or not to go on.  
  
"Yeah?" Arnold prodded suspiciously.  
  
"Don'tchu think it's about time you..." He shifted his weight uncomfortably.  
  
"I...?"  
  
"You..."  
  
"I...?"  
  
"You......."  
  
"Get on with it!"  
  
"You made up with Helga?" Gerald finished, preparing himself for the worst.  
  
Arnold bristled himself slightly, eyes getting that dark look they did every time someone mentioned Helga's name. Even "that ugly kid with the one eyebrow" was beginning to leave a mark.  
  
"NO, NO, and once again, NO."  
  
"Oh, *come* *on*, Arnold," Gerald went on in a very exasperated way, seeming as if he'd wanted to get on this subject for quite the long while. "I mean, I'll admit it, okay? I'm not exactly a member of the Helga Pataki fan club. But it's been three freakin' years! Let it go, man!"  
  
"It's not like Helga cares whether I hate her or not anyway!" snapped Arnold, face reddening slightly. "It's not that big of a deal."  
  
"Yeah, well, no offense brother, but it obviously is to Helga and I happen to *know* it is to you."  
  
"I can hate whoever I want to! It's a free country!! You're just defending her because Phoebe's her best friend!"  
  
Now it was Gerald's turn to bristle. "Even if I *had* any feelings for Phoebeâ€"which I don't!" (Arnold rolled his eyes) "But even if I did, I wouldn't let them get in the way of my assessment of somebody else. Especially Helga Pataki!"  
  
"Gerald," replied Arnold in such a simple manner it sounded somewhat pissy (but that was only to hide the un-Arnold-like misery of the statement). "She. Doesn't. Care. She said that today in class and...I just know she doesn't, ok?"  
  
"Arnold," said Gerald, mimicking his best friend's simple tone. "If she doesn't care she wouldn't have been screaming about how she doesn't care to the entire 8D class."  
  
Arnold opened his mouth to argue, shut it, opened it again, and shut it. Again.  
  
"Ha," replied Gerald in that smug, triumphant tone so popular with his voice nowadays. "See?"  
  
"Well, so what," said Arnold a few seconds later, sounding a lot more like he was trying to convince this to himself than to Gerald. "I mean, so what if she cares? Isn't that along the lines of what hating someone's all about? Not caring if they care because you don't care about them. If you hate someone, you don't care about them. Hate's just an easier way to put it. So, I don't care if Helga cares."  
  
Gerald stared at Arnold for a few long seconds before saying, "Man, why do you hate Helga anyway? I mean, you're Arnold...you don't hate people. But when you do...man, you go on the warpath."  
  
"It's not that bad."  
  
"Yeah, it is! You've gotten to the point where you don't care if she cares or not. I hate to say it, Arnold, but that's really asshole-y of you to say."  
  
Oh, look at that jaw drop.  
  
"Asshole-y?!" exploded Arnold. "Asshole-y?!!? Where do you get 'asshole- y'?! I am NOT asshole-y!! I am nice! I am quiet! I think I'm pretty descent over here and just because of Helga G. Pataki, I'm ASSHOLE-Y!??! She's the one that literally destroyed my only chance of ever finding my parents, EVER (a/n: there's the answer!! see, i'm not that evil). She's the one who's asshole-y, not me."  
  
"I don't get it, Arnold," replied Gerald, surprisingly calm after Arnold's meltdown. "How could Helga Pataki destroy a chance for you to find your parents? Explain."  
  
"Ok," explained Arnold in a gloomy way, only just cooling off. "It's actually pretty straight forward. Three years back this guy came to the boarding house and gave me just this sheet of notebook paper. He left practically before he came. The paper had all this stuff on it about my parents and about where they were and how to get there and what the obstacles were and everything I needed to know to find them. Then..."  
  
"Ohhhhhhhh," Gerald replied sympathetically. "I see."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
For five whole more minutes the dynamic duo walked in silence. Thenâ€"  
  
"Um, Arnold?"  
  
"Yeah, Gerald?"  
  
Gerald bit his lip a little before continuing. "Just...how do you *know* Helga tore up the paper? Did you see the shreds and figure it out?"  
  
"Well, not really," admitted Arnold, slightly peeved Gerald still appeared to be on Helga's side. "I mean, I, um....well I came home from school and ran upstairs to the paper's hiding spot and it wasn't there so I started freaking out. Then I found Helga in the back alley tearing it up and...I don't know, I justâ€""  
  
"Exploded," finished Gerald. "Sure. Your house or mine?"  
  
"Mine," mumbled Arnold, looking at his feet and he crossed Rupert and Vine. Inwardly, Arnold was literally scolding himself with an iron fist for telling Gerald anything about the paper. Worst yet, he was beginning to doubt himself. The last time he'd doubted himself (at least about the issue of Helga) was precisely two days after declaring his hatred for her. The guilt was beginning to creep back to him, three years after the incident and three years of (practically) rock steady compromise. She'd ran off crying...he'd made her cry. And Helga hadn't cried since. And now Gerald thought he was being an asshole about it. In all the years he'd hated her, Arnold had never thought of himself as an asshole about it. Then again, he'd always assumed he wasn't an asshole because Helga didn't care about it anyway. The issue was between him and himself. Now, suddenly it was between him and Helga.  
  
She cared about it.  
  
But so what?  
  
"Hey Arnold!" exclaimed his best friend suddenly, grabbing his arm and tugging him forward. One year at PS 118, a school transfer, and junior high hadn't managed to make any particular dent in their friendship. "Check it out! You got a package! Man, we 8th graders never get mail, much less packages."  
  
"Well, we're technically 9th graders I suppose," replied Arnold, picking up the package in a clearly bewildered way. "Maybe we're allowed to get packages now."  
  
"Who's it from?"  
  
Arnold glanced at the return address and immediately did a classic cartoon- ish double take. It didn't have a return address.  
  
"That's majorly freaky, man," remarked Gerald.  
  
Arnold turned the rusty brass doorknob and walked into the boarding house amongst a stampede of barn animals. Studying the package carefully, he made his way into the "family" room and collapsed onto the sofa.  
  
"Where's Phil?" asked Gerald, taking his seat in Grandpa's velvety green armchair.  
  
"Grocery store," muttered Arnold, turned the box over and over in his hands. The package was a relatively normal looking one, a brown cardboard box taped over and over again in clear duck tape. The address read his name, the boarding house address, city, state, zip. Nothing was out of the ordinary except the apparent absence of a return address.  
  
"Well?!" hinted Gerald in a completely un-subtle way. "Open it already!"  
  
"What if it's like a mail bomb? How d'you know if it is one?"  
  
"I dunno," shrugged Gerald, the thought of blowing up not scaring him in the least. "How heavy is it?"  
  
Arnold tossed the package around easily. "It doesn't even feel like there's anything in it."  
  
"Maybe it's anthrax."  
  
"Why would anyone be sending me anthrax?"  
  
"You did have that issue with the senator tearing up our neighborhood a while back."  
  
Arnold rolled his eyes, took a deep breath and proclaimed in what he considered a valiant voice, "I am going to get scissors!" Wrenching one wooden drawer of the universal kitchen counter open, he grabbed a pair of bright orange scissors and ran back to join Gerald.  
  
Hearts beating like trap sets and mouths in full grin at the prospect of something out of the ordinary, Arnold and Gerald sat at the dark oak wood coffee table and began to open the package. This turned out to take a whole lot longer than either would've guessed. The duck tape strictly resisted cutting and there was several loose layers of the stuff. With pep talk via his best friend and popularity king, Arnold, nothing but Arnold, finally cut through the last layer of tape to the actual package of the package. Adrenaline at a peak, both boys flipped open the top of the box to findâ€"  
  
Paper.  
  
"What... the... heck?"  
  
Arnold numbly dumped the box's contents upside down onto the table. One by one the shreds floated downwards like dove's feathers and scattered across the table's top.  
  
For a few seconds, both boys stared blankly at the remains, both trying to slowly work out just what to do now. Then, Arnold suddenly lunged at the paper shreds, it finally clicking just what they were.  
  
"Wait up, Arnold, there's something taped to the bottom of the box."  
  
Arnold's heart had literally stopped beating. This was it. This was the paper Helga had destroyed. This was the chance, back again, giving him a second chance not to fail them again. Totally ignoring Gerald, he scrambled mercilessly over the little strips of paper.  
  
"'Go see Malachi'? What's that mean?"  
  
Before he knew it, Arnold had the paper finally pieced together. Beaming, Arnold looked at the message. And his heart literally plummeted.  
  
"My Summer Vacation. By Arnold (9/08/99)."  
  
Both pairs of eyes grew to about the size of dinner plates.  
  
"Oh. Holy. Jesus," stated Gerald flatly. "Now what do we do?"  
  
*~*  
  
a/n: have you figured it out??? the 'my summer vacation' thing is arnold's homework assignment from 3 years ago! meaning helga didnt really tear up the paper about his parents. thus pops up a whole lotta new questions. whoooo i'm loving this!!!!! oh and yes this is a mystery. & for the record, i love both mystery & fantasy so if this seems a little disbelievable i apologize profusely. that's just my fantasy side popping out.  
  
one more thing. i've decided to be sort of kind and give my little Author's Hint (patent pending!) at the end of each chapter. so here's my hint of the day!â€" malachi'll play a large part in this but he's not the guy who delivered the package to arnold&gerald.  
  
thanks so much to everybody out there who's reviewed. geez this is why i love ff.net!! so, same rules apply; review and i shall write & flames will be used for toast. ok? ok!! WHOOOOOOOO i'm LOVING this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love writing and i havent written a mystery in forever. please review!  
  
hyperkittyâ€"i cant wait to see that movie. helga confesses in it?!?! I WAS NOT INFORMED OF THIS.  
  
Sonique Hedgehogâ€"thanks for liking it different.  
  
chinyemagneâ€"whoa. i mean, whoa. (*does double take*) i cant believe you like it that much! thank you so much!! oh, and you'd better get up that enigma II up soon or i will stop writing. well...probably not.......  
  
Eudialâ€"but that's just because Mr. Simmons is oh so very special himself ;)  
  
ok, i will see you all soon unless this chapter's perminately scared you away,  
  
keep a mild groove on~  
  
rock steady13 (the alias formerly known as catwoman the alias formerly known as rock-steady13) 


	4. Que Sara Sara

chapter four. Que Sara Sara  
  
"I could hurt someone like me,  
  
Out of spite or jealously,  
  
I don't steal, and I don't lie,  
  
But I can feel, and I can cry,  
  
A fact I'll bet you never knew,  
  
But to cry in front of you,  
  
That's the worst thing I could do."  
  
--excerpt via "There Are Worse Things I Could Do", via the musical Grease  
  
  
  
Arnold was deeply and respectfully pissed.  
  
He was pissed at Gerald, for letting him open the package. He was pissed at the mysterious deliverer with no return address for sending him the package. He was pissed at his grandpa for being at the store while he opened the package. He was pissed at the package itself. He was pissed at the mysterious Malachi, whoever the hell he was. And he was pissed at a whole lot of things he could give no reasons for being pissed at. Most of all, however, he was pissed at the one who had written the letter, the one who had sickeningly brought it all upon himself.  
  
Arnold wasn't just pissed at that person; he hated him.  
  
Gerald was squeamish. He had always been at least slightly squeamish, fidgeting involuntarily when forced to sit for long periods of time, jumping into conversation in the midst of awkward pause. But now, then, in the family room of what could never be technically called a family, he was suddenly sickeningly squeamish.  
  
Arnold had yet to do or say anything after it finally processed in his brain that Helga hadn't after all destroyed the document his and his parent's lives had so desperately hung upon. She had destroyed his book report, just as she had intended. And he had hated her for three solid years, made her beg, made her cry, because she had torn up a book report. And she, only registering that what she had picked up had the name "Arnold" on it, had always thought she had deserved to be hated.  
  
Suddenly Arnold was in the wrong. And he very much didn't like it.  
  
"Hey Arnold?"  
  
He looked up from the totally random place on the white-washed wall he'd been staring listlessly at for the past five minutes.  
  
"Yeah, I'm ok," he said automatically.  
  
"I always thought you had the pieces already," Gerald replied after another three minutes of silence, wryly amused. "So that you could piece it back together maybe. Or something like that."  
  
Arnold shook his head in a despairing way. Gerald simply nodded. Gerald understood without having to have it explained: Arnold, to whom true raging anger was practically foreign, hadn't known how to handle it once he had it. So he had chosen the nearly worst possible decision to choose in a situation like that: scream at the girl, declare your hatred in front of a large crowd of people...and then...  
  
"Run away," Arnold suddenly croaked in a horrified sort of voice.  
  
"Say what now?"  
  
"Ran away," he repeated, murmuring in a transfixed sort of way. "I ran away...I didn't do the brave thing, or the good thing...I ran away from the problem...from the girl...so that I wouldn't have to deal with them on my own. And then I tried to hide behind the excuse that it was her fault. Maybe I always knew, deep down, that Helga would never destroy something like that, ever...maybe I always knew deep down it was some stupid book report...maybe I just didn't want to talk to her. Jebus, Gerald...I have no balls."  
  
Gerald, for the one and only time in his life, didn't speak in reply. He nodded.  
  
Arnold was suddenly torn between three major emotions, only two of which he could actually identify. None had a guarantee; none seemed precisely in the right. His head was grieving, too mixed up in guilt and self-pity and self- hate and self-whatever to actually think of much of anything anymore. His hands were itching to strangle something, in the hope of maybe more anger could correct the anger of before. And his heart...god, he couldn't begin to name what was going on in there.  
  
Gerald let out a sigh by inflating his cheeks slowly with air and letting it out in the sound of a mild explosion. Arnold agreed whole-heartedly.  
  
"So," replied Gerald, talking more in Arnold's direction than actually to him. "What do we do now?"  
  
"Now..." began Arnold, trailing off. He could think of nothing to say.  
  
Gerald sighed again in the exact same way.  
  
More silence. More listening. More listening than either of the boys had done all school year.  
  
"Maybe it's a joke," suggested Gerald, sounding rather doubtful.  
  
Arnold glared. "Nobody," he declared firmly. "in this town would ever do something like that."  
  
"Maybe it was Helga, you know trying to make it look like you were in the wrong or something."  
  
"HELGA WOULDN'T DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT," Arnold blurted suddenly, surprised at himself. If Gerald was surprised, he did an immensely good job of not showing it.  
  
"She wouldn't do that," Arnold repeated, in a more rational, more Arnold-y voice. And, in a way he considered quite graceful, Arnold changed the subject. "What is all that stuff you were saying about a Malachi, Gerald?"  
  
"See for yourself," replied the popular coolly, indicating the over-turned cardboard box. "Some note was taped on to the bottom of that box."  
  
Arnold turned the box over so that the mouth was facing him, and cocked his eyebrows as he read the message. It was written in bright red ink, in capital letters and in a pen Arnold couldn't recognize, on a slightly wrinkled piece of notebook paper which was taped to the inside-bottom of the box. The message was composed of all of three words;  
  
GO SEE MALACHI.  
  
"Now what?" asked Gerald for a second time.  
  
Arnold looked at him, grinning slightly. "Now we find Malachi."  
  
*~*  
  
June bugs, annoying early this year, scattered from the back of the Pataki's white-wash screen backdoor as Helga shoved it open and sent it careening against the wall.  
  
"MOM?! DAD?!!!"  
  
No one answered. Rolling her eyes and putting on a look that would freeze hell, she began the trek up to her room. Passing by a firmly passed out Miriam without so much as a glance, she swung around the railing and walked up the stairs three at a time. Popping her bubble gum nonchalantly, she shoved her bedroom door open with her hip, threw her former backpack into a corner (where it would collect dust affectionately for the next three months), pressed a few keys on her silver laptop without even glancing at the screen, pressed the "play" button on her sterio and ended up, grinning slightly idiotically, next to the deathly black cat on her windowsill.  
  
"Hey Malachi," she greeted her friend, if anything more warmly than those humans at her school. Oh, pardon her; former school. "You are so lucky you aren't a human."  
  
Malachi's name meant "faithful messenger", a description Helga didn't think fit any humans she knew. Helga, having years ago given up hope with humans, decided suddenly one day to become an animal-lover. The Great and Glorious Elder Pataki's had given up caring about Helga when it became obvious she wasn't even going to grow beautiful. One day she came home to discover this rather discomforting fact, that her parents had given up caring about her and had given up hoping she'd ever be as perfect as Olga had grown to be. They had stopped in one day, over night, with no discussions and no debates. Snap decisions, Big Bob had said at one time, was yet another thing Pataki's were all about. They stopped officially caring the 2nd of December. Arnold had stopped officially caring the 2nd of September.  
  
Helga had been born the 2nd of April (a/n: whether she really was or not i dont know but, hey, it's my fanfiction and she was now born that day). Everything always seemed to happen to her in twos.  
  
The day the Pataki's officially dropped their youngest daughter off the face of their little world, they also stopped giving her restrictions. She wasn't even there any more, and honestly that suited Helga just god-damn fine. Any other child, any other person in Helga's situation, with suddenly no one and suddenly no rules, would've split at the seams, lost all respect, lost all responsibility. Luckily, Helga was Helga and Helga wasn't about to let Helga screw Helga up. Like Phoebe said, "You had to marvel."  
  
Helga's other cat, the cat first to be picked up, had to have been at one time a beautiful femme fatal of a cat. She was a Persian, with long once- white hairs and chocolate brown huge cat-eyes. For a street cat (seeing as she lived in the ally next to the Pataki homestead), she was surprisingly fragile and dainty and always wore an expression that clearly seemed to say "Trust me, there's no way I'd be this dirty if I didn't have to be." Helga discovered the cat when she was 12 years old. That was when she believed fiercely and lividly in the concept of "I don't belong to no one and no one belongs to me." She still did, only less...dramatically. So, in this light, Helga had another trademark Pataki Snap Decision.  
  
She named the cat 'Cat'.  
  
She discovered Cat on the 2nd of March, while working on homework in her windowsill.  
  
Everything happened to Helga in twos.  
  
Helga discovered Malachi, the scraggly, scrawny and un-mistakably wise sorcerer of a black cat, seven months later on October 2nd.  
  
Everything happened in twos.  
  
Helga scratched the un-ruly ally cat behind the ears in a lonesome sort of way.  
  
"I did something extremely stupid today, Malachi," she said, looking at the wall, talking to the cat. "I let what I was thinking slip out through my mouth, and now he hates me more than ever." She didn't have to say who he was; Malachi knew that clearly by now. He began to purr, roughly, sounding halfway between a motor and a crackling record. Malachi, being an ally cat by trade, didn't purr too often.  
  
Helga sighed a long, low sigh. "You're name means faithful messenger, Malach," she remarked playfully. "But what've you brought for me lately, hm?"  
  
Suddenly her computer talked.  
  
"You've got mail!"  
  
Helga pondered blandly just who was the woman who's voice had been recorded for the purpose of crowing to the e-mail's owner "You've got mail!" What did that woman do? Was she paid a lot of money? Did she get her e-mail from the same provider as the one she'd been recorded for? And if she did, did that mean every time she herself got a new e-mail she'd hear her own voice going "You've got mail!"? Personally, Helga found that rather creepy.  
  
Helga clicked some buttons and pressed some keys and got to her e-mail account, rememberme@hotmail.com.  
  
4 messages; 1 new.  
  
She'd had the account for 2 years.  
  
Looking at the sender and the subject, Helga's eyebrow jumped up and down again in surprise. The sender was 12:00 Tuesday. The subject was "So Long Suckas!" 12:00 Tuesday was supposedly the time and day the world was destined to end. And only one person went by that name.  
  
Of all the people who had changed over the span of three years, Lila had un- questionably changed the most. At 14, Lila had dyed her hair black, shaved one half of her head and dreamed of joining a heavy metal rock band. She laughed at the world that had rejected her when she "found herself" in the beginning months of 6th grade. The beginning of junior high is a rather bad time to find oneself. Or, at least, that was Helga's view of it. However, whenever Lila was called a freak, or skidded around, or whispered about, she didn't get mad. She didn't get even. She laughed.  
  
"The world is one naive place, Helga," she'd said once to the only person who hadn't deemed her "Child of Satan". "All you can do is laugh at them because one day you're gonna be bigger than they are and they aren't gonna be able to say anything at all to or about you. And we are, Helga. We're gonna be big people someday. And anyone that seems big now...you can almost bet they're gonna turn out small."  
  
Helga liked Lila much better that way.  
  
Lila liked Lila much better that way.  
  
"When you figure out who you are too, Helga, you're gonna really like who you turn out to be." Lila always knew more about people than they knew about themselves. Ever since she'd stopped her image of "Little Miss Perfect" (who, she figured out later, was one manipulative bitch), Lila didn't look at who the person was then; she looked at the person they would be.  
  
The e-mail wasn't just sent to Helga, Helga soon discovered. Lila had sent it to the whole eighth grade class.  
  
Here was how it went;  
  
"Dear sucka's,  
  
Then again, why the hell am I saying 'dear'? You aren't 'dear' to me. 'Dear' is just a sign of politeness and a majority of the time, the person to whom the sender is saying 'dear' to, isn't dear to them at all! So, I would like to change that beginning to simply 'Sucka's'.  
  
Sucka'sâ€" I am getting the hell out of here, so congratulations to all of you, you will never be forced to see my changed-and-thereby-threatening- face ever again. In a half an hour I'm gonna be on board a one-way flight to London, living in with my aunt and two cousins. You wondering why I'm leaving? Well, why the hell should I tell you? You don't care, remember? Oh yes...now you remember...  
  
This letter is not to bitch. This letter is to say just one last thing to all you sucka's before I leave: I've known every last one of you since the 4th grade, way back when I was what you still see as "the real Lila". But people, you don't get it. THIS is the real Lila. The real Lila is the Lila you see with a shaved head and leather and chains and piercings and all. But I haven't changed my outside to look "cool" or any of that. I changed my outside to suit my inside. I'm the real Lila. Me. Not the Lila of yesteryear. I think that the real Lila has turned out just a little too threatening for your tastes, hasn't she? So you say that I'm not the real me, that the real me is the sweet little girl who manipulated boys and who put on a pretty face. Well, I'M NOT. And now that I've realized who I am, and (hopefully) made it quite clear to you that I am not imagining things nor is this a temporary glitch in my system, I can only hope and pray for all of you that you figure out who you all are really too. I just hope to God it isn't the person who I'm seeing now. And if it is, I feel nothing but mild pity and offer nothing but a "Que sara, sara". The only person who I truly hope finds themselves is Helga Pataki because, girl, if you ever do find yourself you're gonna be very happy with her.  
  
Cheers, sucka's!  
  
I leave you with one last message from me: Ever so all of you kiss my ass.  
  
--lila.  
  
Malachi jumped up onto Helga's extended right leg as she finished reading. Helga chuckled slightly. Lila was never the kind of girl to not make a grand exit.  
  
"Well, Malach," replied Helga, x-ing out the screen and smiling. "Let's just hope I find myself, huh?"  
  
The cat's green eyes gave her a "I-know-something-you-don't-know" sort of look.  
  
Helga smiled some more, wryly storing Lila's memory forever into some file in the back of her mind. That was when she noticed it.  
  
Her smile flickered slightly, then turned itself off. Now, irresponsible pet-owner she may be called (she constantly left her bedroom window open so they could slide in and out between her room and the ally), Helga did do one thing: she bought the two cats collars and tags. Both collars were jet- black and leather and looked more like chokers than anything else. The labels both said that basically same thing: Cat's name, home address, home phone, license and the name of their vet's offices. That day, Helga found something extremely unsettling; a folded piece of notebook paper had been jammed in between Malachi's collar and his furry neck.  
  
Cautiously, Helga slid out the paper, unfolded it, and began to read.  
  
*~*  
  
Arnold and Gerald had checked every phone directory they could find for the first name "Malachi". And they didn't come up with a soul. They checked in every major business corporation, asked every person they could think of, checked in the all the directory's of nearby towns and cities.  
  
Nothing.  
  
"Gerald," Arnold replied to his friend irritably as he crossed out another business with no employees named Malachi. "I thought you said you were lucky."  
  
"Well I am!" argued Gerald, squirming uncomfortably in a silent fear that his luck maybe had really run out. "Or, I was."  
  
"What a time for your luck to run out."  
  
"Hey, man, my luck has gone nowhere. It's just...out on vacation."  
  
Arnold rolled his eyes. "Sure Gerald, sure......."  
  
"You know what I think?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"I think that the only reason you're investing so much time into finding this Malachi guy in the first place is that you're avoiding having to go tell Helga you screwed up big time."  
  
"Why does she need to know?" asked Arnold, trying not to sound guilty at his alternative motive being discovered.  
  
"Why do I need to tell you why she needs to know?!" exclaimed Gerald, rather pissed off that his friend was so scared of her he wasn't even going to correct his mistake.  
  
Arnold stopped walking, sighed, looked up at the sky, coughed, and sighed again. He was buying time.  
  
"Arnold..."  
  
Finally, Arnold stopped fidgeting, looked at Gerald with a hopeless but resigned face and said, "Okay. I'll go talk to her tomorrow."  
  
Gerald shook his head firmly. "Hell no, brother, you're going NOW."  
  
"But it's almost 6:30! She's probably eating dinner."  
  
"Arnold, come off it!" Gerald finally snapped. "Why are you even scared of her? She hasn't beaten anybody up in years!"  
  
"Because she doesn't hate me, Gerald!" Arnold blurted at his friend. "All these years I've Pretended to hate her and now I've discovered it was all a big mistake and when I tell her that she is going to hate me and I can't handle someone hating me!"  
  
Two long seconds passed where neither boy did anything but stare at the other. Finally, Gerald spoke.  
  
"So, you're basically worried she's gonna do the same thing to you that you did to her."  
  
Arnold hung his head. "Yes."  
  
Gerald stared at his friend, seemingly deep in thought about something. Finally, he closed his eyes, grabbed Arnold's wrist and began walking firmly down to Helga's humble abode.  
  
"That, my friend, is a risk I am willing to take."  
  
~*~  
  
Arnold made his way up to Helga's front door with shaking knees and a bad feeling in his stomach. What happened next depended on the mercy of his victim; and, seeing what he had done, he had very little faith Helga would let him off.  
  
Ding-Dong.  
  
"The witch isn't quite dead," Arnold continued humorlessly to himself.  
  
Seconds later, the door was opened by none other than Helga Pataki, the witch, the nameless one, herself. Immediately she saw who it was and literally freezed.  
  
Arnold stared at her in surprise; she stared at him in alarm. It was anything but romantic.  
  
Arnold opened his mouth to say something he hadn't quite figured out what was yet but before he could get anything out, Helga grabbed him by the shirt and pried him inside her house.  
  
~*~  
  
that's all for now, folks! dont forget to r&r. i apologize profusely for it taking so long, i kinda got caught in a bad case of writer's block. sorry again!  
  
Author's Clue: Rememberâ€"Helga leaves her bedroom window opened day round so Cat & Malachi can go outside. Also remember that everything happens to her in twos.  
  
check back soon for 5!  
  
keep a mild groove on,  
  
rock steady13 


	5. Hot Air

**disclaimer (as if we don't have to say this enough)** me no own hey arnold! doi.  
  
chapter five. Hot Air  
  
Helga could not believe her luck. Bad luck or good, the whole thing was way eerily circumstantial. Maybe she shouldn't even have let him in thereâ€"or, rather, dragged him in there. Maybe she was playing right into "their" hands, whoever they were. Oh wellâ€"she had started that game, right from the start three years ago, and not no one not nothing could keep Helga G. Pataki from playing.  
  
"WHAT are you doing here?!" she exclaimed, much more in shock than anger. True, she was more-than-slightly irked with him for putting her through major emotional turmoil for three years, but that could wait till later.  
  
Arnold stammered out the answer, trying not to let his shock have any major effect on how he presented himself (It didn't work, by the way). "I, ah, er, I-I kinda came to tell you that...um....that Iâ€""  
  
Helga groaned loudly in frustration and impatience before he could even get the words out. Arnold, the events of the day having made him a nervous wreck, jumped.  
  
"C'mon, footballhead," Helga exclaimed, grabbing his wrist and practically dragging the lanky 14-year-old upstairs to her room. She, in her irritated and slightly schizophrenic state, failed to realize she'd fallen back on her old mannerisms once more. "I am having a major situation here involving YOU and YOU, by the way, are NOT HELPING."  
  
Finally reaching the plywood door and wrenching it open, Helga let go of her (former) hater's wrist. Giving Ol' Footballhead the benefit of the doubt in this case was going to be a challenge.  
  
"Helga," Arnold blurted out finally, anxiety having reached its peak and thereby exploded. "ALL THESE YEARS WHEN I PRETENDED TO HATE YOU AND IGNORED YOU AND STUFF HAVE ALL BEEN TOTALLY POINTLESS AND IT WAS ALL A BIG MISTAKE AND I'M REALLY TRULY SORRY AND I SHOULDN'T HAVE THOUGHT YOU'D'VE EVER DONE ANYTHING LIKE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE AND I'M REALLY SORRY AND WHEREVER THAT STUPID PAPER IS NOW I DON'T KNOW BUT YOU DIDN'T TEAR IT UP AND I'M SORRY!"  
  
Helga stared at him for a few long seconds before saying very slowly, "Yeah. Ok then."  
  
"I'M SERIOUS HELGA!"  
  
"I know you are."  
  
Arnold's jaw dangled loosely for a few seconds at her back before exclaiming, "And you're not MAD?!?" He paused, thought about it for a bit, and came up with, "WHY NOT?"  
  
"Well of course I'm mad, doi!" Helga replied quickly, not wanting Arnold- Footballhead-whatever she should call him now to start thinking she'd grown soft. "But at least I got a head's-up about it."  
  
Arnold's jaw didn't dangle, or drop; he just stared blankly and let it sink in.  
  
"Oy! Footballhead! Helloo?!"  
  
At the sound of Helga's tough-as-nails alto hitting his ears, Arnold finally snapped out of it. "You got a what now?"  
  
For a shining half-moment, Helga softened to the boy. Then she quickly cemented again, chiding herself silently for falling back on old weaknesses. Besides, if Arnold wanted pity he would ask for it, and Arnold was never the type of guy to want or need pity. They were alike in that sense. Instead of offering any sort of comfort (or insult, but Helga didn't think of it that way), Helga walked over to her nightstand, picked up the paper and clippings and held them out to Arnold, who took them warily.  
  
"I think you were supposed to get those, not me," she mumbled to the floor. Arnold didn't reply except to give Helga a pleading sort of look, which she couldn't return. She had suddenly become rather fascinated with the floor.  
  
All other options pretty much gone out the window (just like that black cat, Arnold noted, seeing the creature dart out Helga's Tudor-style window), the kid-not-really-a-kid-no-more flipped over the papers and began to read.  
  
FAMOUS EXPLORER & WIFE LOST OVERSEAS (a/n: ok, i am really truly sorry if i screw something up here. i havent seen "Parent's Day" in forever so i'm a little bit sketchy on the details. bare w/ me. i'm ignorant.)  
  
Arnold's eyebrows rose. He chanced a side-glance over at Helga but the moment his head turned she looked back at the ground.  
  
'SÃ¤o Maria, BRAZILâ€"Dr. Arthur' (the last name was blurred beyond recognition) 'of Hillwood City and his wife, Gwyneth, have seemly disappeared from all contacts. Last seen in the small village of SÃ¤o Maria, Brazil, the two explorers seemingly disappeared off the map. They have neither been seen nor heard from for over two weeks.  
  
Their final destination was apparently to be Tikal, Brazil, a village named for the former Mayan city-state. The doctor was going as a favor for his childhood friend and fellow doctor Parker Muntz and, rather than be separated, he took his wife along with him.  
  
"Arthur had called me from SÃ¤o Maria on a Monday, maybe the 7th," recalled Muntz, the stress and anxiety of the ordeal apparent in his voice. "We talked for five or so minutes. Said he was doing fine, so was Gwennie. The weather was supposedly great for air travel and all the needed supplies were full, seeing as they'd gotten refueled at SÃ¤o. Everything was peachy keen. Then he hung up, said he had to call his kid and wish him a happy 1st birthday. And I haven't heard from him since."  
  
Arthur and Gwyneth, one of Hillwood's many claims to fame, took off apparently from SÃ¤o Maria at 8:29 p.m. on the 7th. This claim has been supported by several eyewitnesses who say they saw them take off in the direction of Tikal.  
  
"I asked the couple if they wanted to stay for the night," says friend Queti Riverez, owner of El Hotel de la Gato Romantica, dubbed by many as "The Hole". "But they said they had to hurry if they wanted to make it to Tikal before the epidemic spread. I didn't bother to argue with them...after all, this was Arthur and Gwennie we're talking about. Once they decided something, it was decided. Especially if they decided it together."  
  
"The distance between SÃ¤o Maria and Tikal isn't far," Riverez went on later. "Only about three to four hours by plane. After three days had passed and no one had heard from them, I became so anxious I called Suzie."  
  
Suzanne Montes de Oca was yet another distant friend of the couple, co- creator of the archeology-based webzine "Dig". The other creator was Gwyneth.  
  
"I was set to meet the couple," Montes de Oca recollected. "Parker had called about the sudden change for Arthur and Gwennie to come in his place only a few days before. I figured, oh well that's okay. After all, I knew Gwennie from the zine and was eager to meet the husband I'd heard so much about. Then Queti called from SÃ¤o Maria on the 10th, wondering if Gwennie and Arthur had gotten there yet. I said no, and he began to panic. Apparently Gwennie's Arthur had called on the 7th from SÃ¤o Maria. I confess; I started freaking out."  
  
Montes de Oca told Riverez to call Parker Muntz about the disappearance. Muntz immediately caught a plane to Lima, and from there rented a jeep and drove to SÃ¤o Maria. He and Riverez organized a quick search party and set out for the missing pair. They have so far found nothing.  
  
"I don't understand it," Muntz says, shaking his head and sighing. "One minute they're there; the nextâ€"poof! they're gone. There had been no hostile weather to bring them downâ€"and it wasn't as if they were flying over the Bermuda Triangle either. They just vanished. We can't even find wreckage to suggest that they crashed. We've got miles of Amazon to go through and no leads. Unless a miracle comes along, Arthur and Gwennie are gone forever."  
  
The pair have left behind an only son, who lives with his grandmother and grandfather. Their location cannot be disclosed.'  
  
Arnold didn't feel so much sad as very confused.  
  
"Read the letter," Helga sighed.  
  
He didn't have to be told twice. Setting the yellowing newspaper clipping down on Helga's pink bedspread, he turned his boyish attention to the piece of lined paper ripped from a spiral bound notebook.  
  
"Dear Arnold,  
  
I'm guessing (and hoping, rather) that you've figured this out by now. If not, then your little friend (or ex-friend; whatever you prefer) Miss. Pataki has come across both this and the clipping from her pet cat. He really is a remarkable creature, if you look at him twice. And very intelligent. Coincidently just like his owner, but you probably have yet to discover that about her. Anyway, if you are coming by these by mere chance or if Helga has come to tell you about them I suppose I should explain what's going on.  
  
Hopefully you've discovered the package I left for you earlier today. And, if you're as smart as I think you are, you've hopefully discovered the message I left for you on the box that said 'Go Find Malachi'. If you looked for Malachi in the phone books and computers, you've done what I feared you would do and that was see Malachi as a person. Malachi is not a person. Malachi is a cat. A black cat in fact, alley cat at heart, which I only recently discovered has formed a rather strong bond with your classmate Helga G. Pataki. I had hoped to get you to talk to her and discover Malachi by means of giving you the pieces you so foolishly left behind three years ago. But, if you are reading this, you've discovered the letter by one way or another and that's all that really matters. And if Miss. Pataki is reading this (which I'm sure she is) she should take note in what I have to say as well. My points are thus, and I shall be thorough and brief in them so, class, take notes!  
  
First: In case you haven't discovered or processed this yet, no, Miss. Helga Geraldine Pataki did NOT destroy the letter you poured over day in and day out years and years ago. I repeat (for it is quite likely young Helga will need to hear the news again) Helga G. Pataki did NOT destroy your parent's "ticket to freedom" and is hereby cleared of those accusations. What she did destroy was a draft of your homework, so if you wish to go down on her for destroying your homework you can be certain those charges are valid.  
  
Second: If you're smart which I know you are, you've certainly come to ask "well, if Helga didn't touch it, what did happen to the letter of freedom?" What happened, Arnold son of Arthur and Gwennie, is that it was stolen. I can say that as a fact seeing as I and I alone know who stole it. That paper had valuable information upon it about Arthur and Gwennie's whereabouts, which is what they needed. And still need.  
  
Third: They, the they who stole your precious letter, need more information than just that on the letter. Three years ago you thought everything you ever needed to know about your parent's disappearance was on that paper; I'm fairly certain if you saw it now you'd think quite the same thing. Nevertheless there is still one more thing they need to know, one more thing that ISN'T on the paper, one thing that isn't a fact but an answer.  
  
Fourth: You know what it is.  
  
Fifth: In order to find out the answer you shall need to discover the question and that I'm afraid I cannot tell you. They know who I am and they know my trust cannot be valued as much as it used to. The question is on the letter, however, and if you use your mind and skills I can lead you to it. Once you discover your answer, you will find your parents.  
  
Sixth: To sum up, find the letter and you find your parents BUT, for there is always a "but", you must watch your step for they know far more than you do in this category. They know who you are, for instance, a thing which you do not know about them. They also have the letter. The only thing they don't have is the answer, for which I thank the Lord, for if they did have the answer Arthur and Gwennie would be finished for certain.  
  
Seventh: If a tired old man may give some advice, I would like to advise you to bring along Miss. Pataki and your apparent best friend Mr. Johansson in this little mission. They both have skills which could help along the way. That is, if they will go. Also, I equally advise you to trust no one but those two for they are the only two to be trusted. One more piece of advice, if you will: Miss. Pataki has a best friend by the name of Phoebe Hyerdahl, one of the brightest book-smarts I've seen in quite some time. She can be trusted but is not, unlike Gerald and Helga, a person of action, thereby I do not advise you to bring her along, for action is needed to win the game.  
  
Eighth: Pay careful attention to this last segment: find the author of the article on Arthur and Gwennie and find out where she got her source. Then, whoever that source may be, find them.  
  
That is all the help I can give you. You are now officially on your own, Arnold. Whether you choose to take my advice or even undergo this adventure is your own choice, but I must urge you to not sit still for a moment because they know who you are. I shall be frank: they have the upper hand. However, I have complete faith in that you have the power, especially with your best friend and the girl at your side, to completely destroy them and their promise. I leave you with all I've given you and offer nothing but the simple chatterings of someone much wiser than I:  
  
"We are, all of us, angels with one wing, and we can fly only by embracing each other."  
  
The best to you,  
  
And there it stopped.  
  
*~*  
  
a/n: whew. sorry for all the talking and reading in this chapter but the action's coming later on so keep yer shirts on. if that very much confused you i apologize too so here's a summery: "They" (the group of people who have Arnold's letter) are the bad guys. somehow in the letter They came up with a question which they need answered in order to get to arnold's parents. only arnold has the answer, only he doesnt know what it is and needs the letter to figure it out. ta da! i give you plot!! oh, one more thing: is anybody else out there seriously hyped up that the hey arnold movie is coming out friday? please tell me i'm not alone!!!!!!!  
  
Author's Clue: Gwyneth (arnold's mother) is only called Gwennie by close friends.  
  
rantings: AHHHHH!!!! I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOREVER TO UPLOAD THIS! WHAT IS UP W/ FF.NET?! WHY CANT THEY GET THEIR STUFF FIXED ALREADY SO I CAN UPLOAD?!?!?! I WANNA UPLOAD!!! I WANNA UPLOAD NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! ah much better :)  
  
till 6 everybody!  
  
keep a mild groove on,  
  
rock-steady13 


	6. Nightmare

chapter six. Nightmare  
They sat around a round iron table, 8 feet wide, 5 feet tall, cold and cruel and hard. It didn't gleam. Shouldn't metal gleam?  
Ha. Some round table.  
"Great," growled a man in black, pounding on the table with one muddy, bitter hand. "Just f---ing great. Now what the hell are we supposed to do?"  
A scarlet-haired woman, tall and beautiful and wrong, began to pick at her nails in an annoyed sort of way. "I don't understand *what* you're so worried for, Roup. Jollymort is more than capable for getting the job done."  
"Bah!" The man called Roup spat a ball of greenish-blackish slime to the floor. "He's capable alright: Capable and trust-worthy are two different things."  
Scarlet didn't look up. "Don't know what you're so worried for..." she sighed again, Brazilian accent creeping up from beneath her New York-ian one as her voice trailed off.  
Roup whipped around from his pacing and slammed both hands on the table for emphasis. The wham of clanging, breaking metal echoed across the abandoned hospital. "Look, Scarlet," Roup wheezed through jumbled and yellowing clenched teeth. "Jollymort was your idea, okay? YOURS. YOU CAN'T BLAME ME WHEN HE F***ING FAILS!"  
Scarlet paused from her long black nails to look up and shot Roup a large, sweet smile, full of bone-white tombstone teeth. Roup shuddered; it was the chilliest thing he had ever seen. He closed his eyes and looked away.  
"I won't blame you, Roup," she purred, propping her long pale legs up on the round table. She fingered a long, silver dagger at her belt loop delicately. Her pride, her life, her joy. "I may be rather...*annoyed* with you, but I wouldn't dream of blaming you."  
Roup opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. A couple of brown rats squealed from a corner. "I just don't see..." he growled darkly. "Why we had to hire Jollymort to take out a god damn 14-year-old boy. Jollymort's expensive, and dangerous even to his employers. Couldn't we've gotten someone cheap for this one? Like Munkustrape, or maybe even Falistr-"  
But at that moment Scarlet let out a joyful, unearthly, shrill hiss and leapt down on one of the fat rats. A few moments later, it was impaled onto her bloody, silver dagger. She sighed, picked herself up from the ground and stared at it's corpse with un-hidden satisfaction.  
"Because, Roup," she finally answered her partner. "If you want something done, you've got to do it right. I want that kid dead, and I want him dead proper. Jollymort will make him dead proper."  
"But why now?" whined the fat, muscular man, impassive to his friends killing. "Why not three years ago, the first time Parker caused trouble?"  
"Because we had no one to spare then, remember?" she replied. "Particularly on a fourth grader. Besides, we got Parker back and we dealt with him." She smiled at that part.  
"And now he's gone again."  
"Yes..." Scarlet began to frown. The other rats began to scream. Scarlet smiled again.   
a/n: hi. i'm so so sorry i haven't uploaded with this story. my life's been really really shitty the last few months and...well, i'm sorry. i didn't think i would continue but i've decided to. this is really short, i know, but i figured it was either upload this now or make you all wait even longer. i'm sorry again. more is coming very, very soon.  
keep a mild groove on,  
rock-steady13 


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